For Episcopal schools' outreach in Haiti: I am looking for gently used violins or other instruments [trumpets, clarinets, etc] to take to Haiti with me as I work with Episcopal schools there. At a Haitian priest's request, U.S Episcopal schools' student musicians and teachers are assisting the birth of an orchestra in Haiti's rural, central plateau. A summer strings camp was recently offered. Music is a basic human need too.

Do you have a child who once practiced an instrument, but that violin or horn is in a closet or the attic now? If you bring it to your parish office, your priest could get it to the diocesan offices and I will gladly retrieve any donations. Since the rural areas of Haiti have few resources to make repairs, instruments that are in playable condition would be appreciated. (I will purchase extra strings.) You'll make that instrument happy...not to mention a Haitian child who wants to learn.

Send me a note to let me know a gift instrument's on the way.

Gratefully,

Roger Bowen,
retired Episcopal priest, Staunton, VA
proger.bowen(at) gmail.com

• Some background on this project:

Founding and supporting schools has become the heart of the Episcopal Church's mission in Haiti. Living in one of the world's poorest countries, the majority of Haitians lack the basic things we take for granted as essential to maintaining a good standard of living. In a country where 75% of the people are unable to read, literacy is a step toward self-determination.

Haiti is one of the dioceses in the Episcopal Church. Forty Haitian priests work indefatigably in the festering towns and dirt-poor countryside to establish and maintain church schools.They travel by jeep, or horse or foot, negotiating treacherous mountain trails and fording rivers, to reach the thatched huts that serve as churches, schools and clinics for their Haitian communities.

Currently, there are more than two hundred Episcopal schools in Haiti. Many of the buildings have hand carved  benches, coconut branch walls and corrugated tin roofs.

Fifty students per classroom is "typical." The average teacher's salary is $66 U.S. each month. Many students' families cannot pay the school fees ($25 - $75 per year per child) which are essential to keep the schools open.

The only hope for survival of these schools during their early years if for them to establish "partnerships" with schools and parishes in the United States, or to receive gifts.

It is my hope that friends and schools will find ways to collaborate with a number of us who are inspired by our schools' mission in Haiti and are working to expand support for our schools there. We work through the Haiti Partnership Program, which is headed by a Haitian Episcopal priest, Father Kesner Ajax.